update page now
PHP 8.4.22 Released!

header_remove

(PHP 5 >= 5.3.0, PHP 7, PHP 8)

header_removeRemove previously set headers

Description

function header_remove(?string $name = null): void

Removes an HTTP header previously set using header().

Parameters

name

The header name to be removed. When null, all previously set headers are removed.

Note: This parameter is case-insensitive.

Return Values

No value is returned.

Changelog

Version Description
8.0.0 name is nullable now.

Examples

Example #1 Unsetting specific header.

<?php
header
("X-Foo: Bar");
header("X-Bar: Baz");
header_remove("X-Foo");
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

X-Bar: Baz

Example #2 Unsetting all previously set headers.

<?php
header
("X-Foo: Bar");
header("X-Bar: Baz");
header_remove();
?>

The above example will output something similar to:


Notes

Caution

This function will remove all headers set by PHP, including cookies, session and the X-Powered-By headers.

Note: Headers will only be accessible and output when a SAPI that supports them is in use.

See Also

add a note

User Contributed Notes 5 notes

up
15
Saeed Khamseh
15 years ago
if you want to remove header information about php version (x-powered-by), you can use:

header_remove('x-powered-by');

alternatively, if you don't have php 5.3 installed, you can do the same thing using "header" command:

header('x-powered-by:');

don't forget the ':' character at the end of the string!
up
3
Anonymous
10 years ago
expose_php is php.ini only!

this won't work:
ini_set('expose_php',0);

works:
header_remove('x-powered-by');
up
1
luis dot angelino at laweb dot com dot br
2 years ago
If you are using this:

#!/usr/local/bin/php

You can add "-q" at the end of it and the headers will be removed, beacuse header_remove will not remove "Content-type"

#!/usr/local/bin/php -q
up
0
razvan_bc at yahoo dot com
1 day ago
<?php
header_remove('Server');
phpinfo();
?>
In Apache php 8.5.6 it will only delete in the HTTP Headers Information section but the header is sent by Apache and cannot be override by php.
You can find it in the browser console, in the network section.
So you will need other various methods..
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9000853/apache-how-to-hide-server-version-and-operation-system-from-users
up
-2
jake at qzdesign dot co dot uk
8 years ago
When called from a command-line process, this function does nothing when passed a specific header to remove, but it does nonetheless work properly when called with no arguments to remove all headers.

Thus, when unit-testing or executing in some other test harness, if the code you are testing may call `header_remove()`, with the UOPZ and XDebug extensions loaded, you could use the following in order to more effectively test that the expected headers are set [which you would do by inspecting the array returned by `xdebug_get_headers()` after running the code under test, as `headers_list()` does not work despite the headers actually being stored internally as normal]:

<?php
uopz_set_return(
  'header_remove',
  function($name = null) {
    if ($name !== null) {
      $pattern = '/^' . preg_quote($name, '/') . ':/i';
      $headers = array_filter(
        xdebug_get_headers(),
        function($header) use($pattern) {
          return !preg_match($pattern, $header);
        }
      );
    }
    // This works to remove all headers, just not individual headers.
    header_remove();
    if ($name !== null) {
      foreach ($headers as $header) {
        header($header);
      }
    }
  },
  true
);
?>
To Top